Least Favorite Oblivion Quest

[GenghisJohn]

I just finished the Arena storyline and I have to say I was totally let down at the end. The Gray Prince was one of those guys you could count on. He was always there in the arena hitting that wall with his sword. I have no idea how that helped him, but he was having such a good time and he was always so nice to everyone. I finished the storyline about his history a while ago, so I knew who he was and I could tell that he wasn't happy about it.

I fought my way through everyone in the Arena (I love the Arena and would knock off a couple of Yella Teamaz every time I stopped by the city. It was almost like it was on my shopping list ... eggs, milk, ectoplasm, the heads of 2 Yellow Team Brawlers, repair hammer). Some of the fights were pretty epic, like the two sisters and the 3 argonians. Some of the fights were over in seconds, like a lot of the pure melee fighters (my character is a melee fighter through-and-through ... custom class where I used the Warrior as a baseline but replaced some of the skills I don't use, like Blunt and Hand-to-Hand, with things I do use, like Destruction and Restoration). Even those were memorable because the Arenamaster would go on and on about how I was going to die in the Arena that time, but I was back in under 5 minutes with barely a scratch.

So you can imagine how amped I was to pick my arena nickname and go toe-to-toe with the legendary Gray Prince. Anyone that's done this knows how it went down. Needless to say, I was totally let down by that fight and I almost felt bad. Now I was the Grand Champion but didn't feel like I really deserved it, that Dark Brotherhood guy got all up in my face during the night, and one of those things that you can always count on was gone.

The little kid with the awful hair wanted to follow me around, but I told him to shove off. I went right to my waterfront apartment, dropped off my Rainment of Valor and the Gray Prince's stuff, picked up my adventuring gear, and decided to walk to Anvil and hang out for a while.

There are other quests that irritate me, like the slaughterfish and the ninroot quest, but the final battle in the arena left me thinking to myself "Man, I'm a jerk."

[Vook]

True, the last arena match makes you feel like [&@%!], but that's actually a very good quest, moody, with a very unexpected twist, turning the whole scheme of "get quest, fulfill, get reward and praise" thing upside down. Making you feel how the job of a gladiator sucks. The outcome sucks, the quest - taken as a story - rules.

On the opposite end of the scale, a quest I really hate. "An unexpected voyage". This might have been a so-so, your average quest, maybe slightly annoying but acceptable. But it seems the authors have pulled the worst they could pull off the game in this quest.

Encouraged Spoilers ahead. This will save you a lot of disappointment and frustration.


I started the quest by renting a room on Bloated Float, the tavern-on-water in Waterfront District. A nice place, interesting looks etc. I had some plans for the next day, Skingrad, Anvil, took the place because it's nearest and wanted to start as early the next morning as possible. Before going to sleep, I check the whole place. Two outer decks, nice, lower deck, one door "needs a key", one door "sealed and cannot be open" and third door to my room.

So I wake up in my cabin and hear open sea. Whoa! A quest! Okay, I'll postpone the other stuff or maybe get to finish this one fast. Then I see a requester "It seems the ship has sailed out into open sea while I was sleeping. I should investigate further." No [&@%!], sherlock.

So I open the door and see the thug. Hold attack, charge, power attack. Then... he starts talking. And talking. And talking. Attack me, goddamnit! Finally we come to the inevitable conclusion but of course I can forget about power attack, he gets the first hit. One restore health potion further I have him on the floor and search him. But before I get to search the body, I get a requester telling me that I should search the body.

So I find a note. I read it. Then I read another requester which contains all that was written in the note. The sealed door is still sealed, but I get the key and release the bouncer from the storage locker, then he tells me how useless he is and that I should kill the rest of the bandits. No [&@%!], sherlock. And then I get a requester telling me that the bouncer is useless and I should kill the rest of the bandits. Whoa, something new!

So I sneak up to the next bandit. Poisoned sword drawn, I'm right behind her ready to stab her back. Bummer, she saw me. And she appears very surprised, what might I want with a poisoned sword behind her back, and starts asking me lots of really dumb questions. Finally we come to agreement that I want to kill her and standard conclusion. And then a requester informing me that I just killed her and should speak to the bouncer.

The bouncer arrives and tells me to take over the deck and steering wheel. Then the requester tells me the same. I try the door to rear deck. Locked. The front deck. Locked. I pick the key from the body. I open the rear deck door - I know the wheel is on the front deck and the cabin in the middle would provide a convenient place to kill the guy at the wheel with arrows.

The door opens and I'm on the deck, sea around me to the horizon (why the hell did they sail so far? They are headed to Leyawinn, as one of the useless dialogues revealed!) But okay, I cautiously try to jump on the barrier, careful not to fall out, in the water. I fail. I try harder. I walk to a different point, and try purposedly jumping off the ship. No way, invisible walls. So now shamelessly pushing against the invisible wall, I jump on the barrier and then on the roof. But then again, another invisible wall. I can see the guy, I could get a shot at him, but the arrow bounces off the wall across the roof of the cabin, through the middle of the ship.

Really [&@%!] off by now, I return and sneak out through the front door. Poison, sneak attack, a strong spell, a moment of fight. I get to kill the guy. And then I get a requester with some really interesting news. That the guy talked with me before the fight and that he mentioned that they are looking for some "golden galleon". I'd swear he didn't talk the moment I stabbed him in his back, but whatever. Taught by experience I grab the key from the body without checking that the captain cabin door is indeed locked. Why, if the bandit had the whole ship under control?

So, a quicksave at the door and I enter. Of course the boss of the bandits runs up to me. So I mention everything from the beginning, what was on the dialogues that occured or not, and she surrenders. And a requester that I should talk to the tavernkeeper. Cool. Finally the end. I walk up to the tavernkeeper and try to talk to him. But as he moves, I pick an apple from the table instead. And then I hear "YOU THIEF" and the tavernkeeper AND the bandit leader together attack me. I kill her and beat him unconscious, despite the fact that I -REALLY- want to kill him by now, screw all quest rewards I'm Really [&@%!] Off.

But I just surrender, quickload, [&@%!] my way through the same dialogue with the rogue, then talk to tavernkeeper. "I don't feel secure until she's locked up". So I walk up to her and she says "I surrendered, what more do you want?" So how the hell am I supposed to lock her up? Okay, I get through rumors, through the stupid backstory behind the whole hijack, and finally arrive at topic of the thief name and get "Lead her to the room downstairs, lock her up there.

I walk up to her, but before I get there, I get a requester informing me that I should talk to her and lead her dowstairs. Okay, so I do. I walk up to the sealed door and she vanishes in thin air in front of them. The door is still just as sealed as before, and I have no way to unlock or lock them, but the requester informs me I should talk to the tavernkeeper again.

What's the news now? Go to sleep! Yay, I'm so excited to waste another hour, it's almost noon by now. But if going to sleep is going to take me off this nightmare of RPG developer incompetence, I'm more than willing to do it. So I just dispose of another requester informing me that I just talked to the tavernkeeper and what he said, go to the room and go to sleep. I wake up to a ding of a requester telling me to talk to the tavernkeeper again. I go to the main tavern deck and everything is back in order, no corpses, just partrons drinking beer. I talk to the tavernkeeper and learn there was a bounty for the boss of the gang, that she will rot in prison and that I deserve the bounty. Some 300 gold. And more and more of talking. And a requester congratulating me on the quest finished.

Unfortunately there's no option to tell where he should stuff this gold, so I bid him hearthly goodbye instead and since the sun is setting already, I find a different inn where I could find a place to sleep and actually continue with my plans in the morning.

[GenghisJohn]

True, the last arena match makes you feel like [&@%!], but that's actually a very good quest, moody, with a very unexpected twist, turning the whole scheme of "get quest, fulfill, get reward and praise" thing upside down. Making you feel how the job of a gladiator sucks. The outcome sucks, the quest - taken as a story - rules.

You're definitely right on with that last point. I mean, I'm here talking about it, so it was a good story.

[GrayMouser]

No epic tale here. Just posting that the slaughterfish and the Prize Winning Potatoes were both pretty lame.

GM

[Vook]

Heh, I thought the potato quest was actually quite funny. I was pondering eating the potatos upon finding them, expecting answer like "You monster! You devoured my darlings, my beauties!" =)
I regret there was nothing more to that quest, just the bread.

OTOH content aside, the slaughterfish quest is so bug-ridden that both times I played it, I had to use cheats to finish it, and most other people do too. Fishes spawn inside rocks, or somewhere on the shore, pick more scales and they remain as quest item forever, the guy is nowhere to be found and so on.

[istara]

The Arena was very disappointing for me because I did it around Level 32, and every single fight was an absolute walkover. (Difficulty is on default - I suppose I could have set it higher, but whatever).

I generally hate escort quests, but I've noticed the characters follow you much better than in Morrowind.

The goblin-infested farm quest was a bit annoying, mainly because it was so hard to keep both brothers alive. I had to reload half a dozen times before I managed it without anyone dying.

[i9ub]

Hmm, no quests come to mind as least favorite. I think that the quests in Oblivion are fairly well thought out and the majority of them are fun. Sure there are some run-of-the-mill quests that just scream filler. But that is to be expected in a RPG.

I liked the end of the arena quests. I liked how you could either let the Gray Prince know of his heritage, and euthanize him... or battle him in an epic climatic bout. I turned the difficulty all the way up for the last fight against the Gray Prince, refrained from using poisons, and only brought a certain number of select potions. It was quite a fight.

[GenghisJohn]

The goblin-infested farm quest was a bit annoying, mainly because it was so hard to keep both brothers alive. I had to reload half a dozen times before I managed it without anyone dying.

Yeah, I noticed that those two kids go down like a couple of sacks of potatoes, too. I did the fight once and for some reason wound up reloading. The second time both kids died and I figured "f**k it, not everyone is cut out for a life of fighting goblins" and just kept going.

I've noticed that the monster AI tends to attack NPCs before it goes after me in many cases. I've had scamps run right past me and kamakazi Invincible Martin. That worked out nicely in the last "regular season" battle in the Arena. The Yellow Team archer and spellcaster both went straight for Porkchop and left the Yellow Team champion, that b*tch I'd been wanting to kill since I first set foot in the Bloodworks, alone with me. It was a good fight but I killed her. When I finished, I saw that Porkchop had turned the spellcaster into a grease spot and had the archer cornered down in the Yellow Team gateway. I just hung out and waited for him to finish up and collected my reward.

I'd take Porkchop over the arena fanboy anyday.

[cadahnic]

Ohh the emotions that come to mind thinking about the Tears of the Savior Quest. It is the worst.

SPOILER ALERT!!!

Why put some translucent tears on a shiny ice like background. Not to mention that if you walk over the one on the damn rock it will fall in the rock. Took me forever to find all the tears and then I get back ready to kill the Khajit [&@%!] for sending me on the quest, but I figure he will give me some gold and a spell, free training, a weapon, damn something and he gives me a little bit of gold and he is happy. I gave him a poison apple in his sleep and was kicked out of the guild mid-day while exploring. Some bloodgrass and whatever later all is forgiven and nothing but a missing page in the anals of how the great Arch-Mage came to power.

[SilentMoon]

The most annoying quest I've done so far has got to be the closing of the Cheydinhal gate, and rescuing of the local lord's son.

At this point it should be said that my characters are either a mage or a sneak marksman. Neither of them feel very strongly about rushing into battle, and require to actually aim.
Yeah, well, that prince guy and his buddy just rushed every single daedra they could see, getting into my line of fire every freakin time. I had to reload like 50 times to complete the mission without both of them dying. I had to switch to a dagger and get into melee range to get the aggro off both of them (yay for enchanted clothing). And thank god for heal other, which I was inspired enough to buy long ago, I don't even know why.

In the end I managed to get the bugger stuck behind a door and ran the last floor of the tower to grab the stone before he got ganked. This had to be the most frustrating oblivion gate shutting ever.

The fool's father seemed to agree with me though, and I got a nifty-looking staff as a reward as well as a speechcraft amulet.

I'm pretty sure this was introduced as some kind of Leeroy Jenkins tribute. Thanks so much for that. :p

[GrayMouser]

At this point it should be said that my characters are either a mage or a sneak marksman. Neither of them feel very strongly about rushing into battle, and require to actually aim.
Yeah, well, that prince guy and his buddy just rushed every single daedra they could see, getting into my line of fire every freakin time. I had to reload like 50 times to complete the mission without both of them dying.

I felt the exact same thing while doing that quest. Major pain with no reward to speak of since neither of the items were of any use to my character. But I let the other guy die since it didn't change anything (I think).

GM

[rpger]

Any quest that has NPCs which initiate the Crash-to-Desktop bug.

[GenghisJohn]

Any quest that has NPCs which initiate the Crash-to-Desktop bug.

Once nice thing about the Xbox ... I've played about 50 hours worth of the game so far, and only 2 crashes. Both times I turned the XBox off and turned it back on again and that was that.